Optimize Your Online Store

6 Steps to Write a Product Description that Sells

Optimize Your Online Store

Lesson 12 of 21

6 Steps to Write a Product Description that Sells

Lesson Info

6 Steps to Write a Product Description that Sells

So let's talk about the six steps that I want to share with you to writing a really amazing product description how many of you here feel that your product descriptions right now as they are are amazing and you're super proud of them? No one? Okay, well, you're in the right place because that's all we're going to be talking about right now and I know there's times too when I look at my product descriptions and I know something's missing, I know something's not quite connecting, but I'm just not sure what that is, so today I'm hoping that you're going to think about some stuff that maybe you haven't I thought about before to write really great product description. So the first step we talked a lot about knowing who your ideal buyers but really this is super important when you are talking about product description. So do you really know your target and your ideal customer? Do you know who they are? Do you know what there interested in? Do you know where they're spend their time? One maga...

zines they read what foods they eat I know it's kind of an abstract concept to think about while I have one hundred different customers, not all of them have one thing in common how am I supposed to know that? Because I'm not there with them to see one magazines they read but there are overall general things that you could know about your customers, you know, do your customers are more? They are they more likely to read yoga journal magazine or self magazine? Those are things that you can kind of find out by asking them or by even interacting with them on social media, and we're going to talk about social media tomorrow when you can connect really connect with your customer, connect with your customers through facebook as well, and even most importantly, when it comes to your product description, do you know what they're struggling with? And how do your product solve that problem? And I know the first time I came across this concept, I thought, well, someone is going to buy my t shirt because maybe they like the way it looks or maybe they like the message on it, but how am I supposed to know what they're struggling with as they are reading my I product description? Right? It's sort of this concept that everyone talks about and really knowing what your customers struggling with, but you don't necessarily have to know, you know, when they're sitting down with their mouse clicking on your product, what they necessary, they're struggling with what I mean is overall in terms of how your products fit in. To their lifestyle, what are they struggling with? And I know for me one of the things that I really wanted to solve with my t shirt business was really allowing women to x express themselves through the message that they wear on their t shirts and again in super specific, but they might feel like maybe I'm not being heard. Maybe I want to express myself. Maybe I just love sharing the messages that I believe in, and I want everyone else to see them too, but I don't have a way to do that other than just shouting get out there. So worrying this t shirt, yes, it's just the t shirt, just like it's, just a necklace or nearing, but it does solve a problem because they're struggling with expressing themselves and finding ways to let the world basically know who they are and your jewelry couldn't do that. Your skin care could do that your home, the court can do that all of your products consol of that problem and your customer has something that they are dealing with. So one way to do that in your product description again, we've talked aa lot about the concept of using you on your throughout your website, but this is even more important here because you want to grab them right away. Just like on your home page just like on your about page where you're speaking directly to them and addressing their struggle or addressing their problem right when they start reading your product description and again it's all about having this two way conversation it's not about you saying my t shirt is I don't know made from one hundred percent cotton or it's this or it's that but it's about I know you would really like this and or I know you're struggling with this problem and this is how my product can help you address a sack all right? So it's really really important to get to know who your ideal audience and your ideal customer is because then you can write your product description specifically for them now the other thing and I know a lot of people don't really focus on this I know some jewelry designers or maybe handbag designers my focus on this but a lot of people don't really think about the product name they just sort of do you know one hundred percent cotton t shirt or red blouse or something like that where it's really not that descriptive or it doesn't have a character or a persona of its own so I really want you to think about your products as each have being their own thing that exists by itself that has a name it has sort of a branding around it that fits within your whole brand if that's making sense, so you really have to think about your products and how they reflect your brand name. So I wanted to give you a quick example here, so let's say you were jialu designer, your product description might be something like the first one I've seen this on some websites. Have any of you seen this on some other web sites as well, or just sort of a generic name that doesn't really speak to the customer? It says what it is, but it doesn't really have a name of its own. But what if you named it something different instead of just that nonsense? You know, nonsense letters, you couldn't just say something like the whimsy necklace again, it has to reflect your brand. It can be something that doesn't make sense for your audience, or instead of saying, tote bag, which I know we've all seen when we've gone to different web site, what about giving it its own name and just come up with something again that reflects your branding? What if you name it that that way people know exactly what this product is, they conservative beep become a part of your brand, and I have to say there's many brands who can get can charge higher prices simply by changing their product name, so especially for jewelry designer this is so important because if you are having if you're selling a five hundred dollars piece of jewelry maybe a necklace if you just call it silver necklace that in itself is now worth five hundred dollars but what if you call it some other really catchy name that warrants five hundred dollars? So I want you to think about your product descriptions or your product name first and foremost to in addition to your product description so I know it's something that we just tend to name like for example, for my t shirts I would just name it too they matters t shirt or she was happiness t shirt but again if you really think about what can you do to enhance the product and the perceived value and sort of be playful but within your brand got really goes a long way to so it's really, really important something that aa lot of people I feel don't really focus on there more focused on the product picked pictures and or videos or product description but they kind of forget about the product name so it's really, really critical to think about your product name as well the third thing that I would love for you to think about is the benefits and we're going to talk about features and benefits in just a second but the benefit is really what is in it for them what's the reason they buy your product and how will they benefit from using your products? So yes, I know it's just a t shirt but how are you going to benefit one? You are actually wearing that t shirt now the features, on the other hand, are things that answer the question what is it? What is it made with? How is it made? Where is it made and all of those other things that come so easy to us? Because we know where t shirt is made from one hundred percent cotton or we know it has this type of shea butter and not that sort of essential oil. So those are things that come really easy to us, that we already know that we are so familiar with that weaken sort of, you know, any time someone asked them asks us what our products are made of, we know whether made off. So those are the features it's the what is it? Was it what is it made out of? But not what does it do for you or how do you feel when you wearing it? So you do you are you seeing the difference between between features and benefits? Okay, so now these are just more examples, and I know sometimes when I look a product descriptions and some of you might be guilty of this too, which is why I'm glad you're old here and for everyone watching as well. But your product descriptions might simply just have those types of words that describe what your product is made of. These are all important. These are things that your customer wants to know, but this is not necessarily what's going to get them to buy. So they do need to know this information too. I'm not saying to leave it out because you do need it. But it's is not the finger should be leading with in your product description. So the benefits I know what we mentioned before, but it really answers more deeper questions. So it answer things like, what does it do for them? What will they again from using it? How is it going to make them look? How is it going to make them feel? How is it going to make them act? Is it going to save that money is going to make them lose weight, gain weight, x cetera, those air the benefits off the different features. And these are some other words here that would be considered benefits like all of these words are things that haven't action behind them, they're not simply one hundred percent organic, they are other words that have more of a meaning and more of an impact. And I know in the worksheet that we have here with the coursework book, there is a page if you want to open their that talks about the benefits and the features, and then there's here a little handy table where you couldn't really put in all of the features of your products and then come up with a list of the benefits for each. So if you have in ours, repeat for the course yet, make sure to do so because you will be able to download this handy coursework book and then open up to the product description benefits versus features page, and this will really help you to take a look at every single one of your features and talk about the different benefits. So I wanted to give you an example here, but this is really where, again, your customers are going to the side if your product is for them or not. So, for example, if you just said, made from one hundred percent organic cotton that's a feature, but why is that important to your customer? So if you keep asking why, why will it matter to them? Well, maybe for some of your customers that's important, because it's healthier for them because they're not exposed to any chemical, so you can say that in your product description. And sort of have your customers and vision themselves as to what the benefits are for your products instead of just saying it's one hundred percent organic cotton or if it's handmade I know this is ah huge thing a lot of people especially jewelry designers lead with the fact that their products are handmade and that's awesome I think that's really great but why is that important to you and why is that important to your audience and the people that are buying as well because they're not necessarily buying because it's handmade although some of them are some people specifically look for products there are handmade they want something unique they want something that's different they want something that's not mass made so some people do look specifically for handmade products but it's your job to sort of go beyond that and think about why would someone want a handmade product? Why do they want a hand me necklace as opposed to a necklace that was manufactured you know, ten thousand the pieces I look the same. So this is something that you definitely should write in your product description because a lot of people do care about that but then tell them why that's important to you and most importantly why they should care that it's handmade and again you having more of that conversation with them rather than making them do all the work because maybe not everyone knows the benefits of handmade some people do maybe if there are your website, they already know that, but I'm not everyone knows that so for example and I'm not going to read all of them, I'll just have this year, so you guys can just get a quick idea, but for example, made from sterling silver, why is that important to someone? And yes, it is important because some people are specifically looking for jewelry that's made from sterling silver ah as opposed to other material, so that is important to them. But I want you to go even beyond that. Why is that important? Why doesn't matter so keep asking why? Why? Why is this important? Until you get to the answer as to why that's important to you or wide? And why it's important to your audience and your customers as well? All right, so your product description should also answer their questions again. People are not in the store, they can't come up to you and say, hey, what this man out over hey, how long is this going to last? Me? So you have to use your product description to really answer all of their questions, but most importantly, this is the one important questions that I want all of you to think about is why must they absolutely have to have it and I know it's you're thinking well if they're on my side they probably want my stuff anyway I don't have to do any more convincing I've convinced them on my home page I've convinced them on my about paige I've done my job I don't need to convince them in my product description because if they're on this page they obviously wanted but no your job is not done you still have to convince them that they want your product so think about why and again if your case is compelling enough price will not matter it doesn't matter if you're selling a five hundred thousand dollars or five hundred dollars necklace or a five thousand dollars necklace if you make it obvious to them why they must absolutely have to have it they won't care about the price they'll find a way to make it happen and I've seen this over and over again and even with my t shirt business I first started selling my t shirts at twenty eight dollars and I thought that was a fair price and then I realized after a couple of months running of running my business I realized that that was not going to be sustainable and I wasn't gonna have enough money to really grow my business so I decided to change my pricing and charged thirty four dollars for a t shirt now that's a lot for a t shirt right but if you position it correctly people will buy it, and I have to tell you this happened to me and I hear this all the time when people increase their prices and they justified those price increases in their product description and with their whole branding, their sales increase as well. Now I'm not saying if you want to increase your sales, increase your prices and that's how you do that, although that could happen, but you do have to back it up, but I don't want you to ever be afraid to increase your prices if you need tio I know a lot of us tend to under charge, especially one of first starting out, but using your product description to justify why the absolutely have to have it is a great way to get that higher price point and get someone to pay for it. And then you also want to answer more technical questions like, what is your product going to do? Who is it for and again, I know some of this might be really obvious, and the point here is not to have a product description that goes on for pages that's not, you know, two or three paragraphs should be plenty, but you do want to take all of these questions an account and make sure you are answering them as you are writing your product descriptions. All right, you can also talk about some of the other benefits, like kahlo's, your product going to make them feel I know when I had my cell business. Part of my product description is that this product will make you feel or this a bar of soap will make you feel spired, or it'll make you feel like you could do anything and again that's kind of a stretch, but it isn't because if you look at my selves with the messaging and the price point, you kind of have to get your audience too put themselves in your shoes and especially using your products, and if you are telling them your product, my product is going to make you feel inspired or it's going to make you feel like a million bucks, so you've never felt this way before it'll transform your life. All of those are things that, yes, you think it's obvious to them, but it's, not always, and this goes back to when we were giving out examples of all of our stories and and why we do what we d'oh it's so obvious that when we hear the story behind it and the big why, then we're more connected with it on this is the dead's it definitely should be on your about page, but it should also be on your product page. As well you also want to quote answer questions like what does it look like? Maybe again they're not there to test it and try it out and feel it and look at it and small it so if you can help them to answer those questions through your product description again makes their job a lot easier they couldn't envision themselves using your product and hopefully you have a customer for life and last thing we talked about handmade by you might also want to talk about how your product is made if you I know I have lots of clients who work overseas and they use maybe women's coop groups in africa or asia to do to make their jewelry you definitely want to talk about that in there too, because that is part of your story and it's a part of your branding and it's not something that you could ignore because that's often the times the reason why you're doing what you're doing. So if your product has an awesome story about how it's made make sure to mention that as well in your product description so I know that's a lot of stuff to think about but it really is important to think about all of these as you writing your product descriptions yes people are just visiting one page so being repetitive is ok yes being repetitive it's totally okay just like having your opt in on every page is totally okay and the more you can talk about the same thing over and over again but again, you can use different language it doesn't have to copy and paste from your about page or your home page, but people have so much so much that they think about are so much on their minds as they're going through a web site that they might forget that you said on your about page in your last paragraph that your products are handmade in southeast asia, so if you mention that again, if that's part of your story and it's important to you yes, please mention that there as well so don't ever feel like you're doing too much just keep reminding people of your mission and why you do what you do thanks under and we have just gotten that question actually in our in our questions document any other advice for making each the all the duplications of products unique and any best practices you could give you know, I think if you think about your products as a individual product so for example with my t shirts or with my bars of soap, I really thought about just that particular bar of soap so all of the prop for example with myself some of them were made lavender some of them were made with lemon grass so I would talk about why those ingredients mattered for that particular product and then it doesn't sound as repetitive, but if every product that just said made from organic essential oils and handmade than that that's kind of get boring. But if you talk about these the specific ingredients or the specific things or features and why they're a good benefit and if you look at each specific product and sort of treated as its own, I think you're going to avoid some of that repetitive nous and some things you can you can't avoid, like maybe your entire line is made out of sterling silver. Obviously you do need to mention that in every single product description, but if you start out with just what's unique and special about that particular product, you shouldn't run into that problem too often. All right, so I know you're just asking about what is it too much info? It's never too much information, so you want to provide them with even more information in your product description. So if you have a peril or clothing or something that has sizing you can link to a size chart and your product description. I know this is a question that comes up all the time, especially with my teacher business people would write to me and say, oh, hey, you know, is your size small there's a fit size four or is it more for size two or size zero? But if you consent them to a size chart, and again your side short doesn't have to be in your product description, it could just be a link to your sides start that just makes it so much easier for your audience to find exactly the information that they're looking for, and it goes the same for ingredients, things that your products are made out of, and this is a really cool one. I know some of you struggle with well, what should I do? My video on I don't want to just be me talking if you have a product that needs demonstration and some products do, maybe if you have a skin care line that there's a certain way, you can put it on or a certain steps you have to follow and different products, you have to use step one and then step two. This is a great way, or a great reason to do video, so if you have a product that shows that can show people how to actually use your product, a great way to do that is through video rather than just through your words, yes, it was a bit, yeah, I have a product I called a soul rainbow, silk, it's, personal it's a personal piece of it's a personal rap for someone I'm tuning into them and then painting it and I've made videos for that of how I've made it I think I've made four videos and that's my best selling piece on my on my website I do feel it's because of the videos that's amazing yeah thank you for sharing that I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of the videos I'm pretty sure it's because of that so thank you for sharing that and video does have such a huge impact on your audience and they're more likely to watch a video than they are to read but that doesn't mean that you need to ignore your product description and you could just have a video instead of your product description they all sort of work together and the same for photos people would rather look at a photo then read about it but again the only value product description because that is really important too because different people learn differently so some people prefer to watch a video other people will look at your images other people actually read everything so you want to make your website make sure that it addresses everyone who comes there not just people who love to watch videos so great great point yes just going to mention that's going to be good for a ceo to because the videos and the pictures won't include any key words is that correct yes that's well kind of because google loves pages with videos so if you have a video on your page it's more likely to come up but there is a way to optimize your images and your videos for a ceo which actually we're going to talk about soon so I'm glad you brought that up but yes it's super important to think about your videos and your images for a ceo as well and I'm going to show you how you could do that in just a minute so I'm glad you brought that up, jody all right, so provide even more info eso anticipate what are the questions they might come up with so I know if you're like most entrepreneurs, you might get questions all the time by email of people saying, oh, I was just on your website I was thinking of buying this but I'm still not sure about your sizing or I'm still not sure what it's made out of or they have questions that come up over and over again and if you can take all of those questions if someone asks you something or if two different people ask you something more than once that probably means that other people have the same exact question and you should put that in a frequently asked questions page again not necessarily on your product description but have a link word says have even more questions check out our thank you, page, and we talked about the fake you page, I think in the first or second segment and the importance of having that because people will have questions, and if you can address them right away without making them work for it and email you, they're going to be even happier. So, yes, what about, um, is it is not bad to direct them away from the current page, where they're trying to buy something if you're providing a link? Yeah, great question, so I would recommend if you do have a link to make sure that the link opens up in a new page, a non esus era really in the same browser? If that makes sense because you could have a link, open up in a new page or on the same page, so you definitely don't want to close them out of their current page, although they technically could hit the back button and come back to your page. But if they're interested enough in reading more and if they have questions by that point, they probably are pretty sure that they are ready to buy. But they just have a couple more questions, so I think it's more important to address their questions, rather that by just clicking a link that goes to another page that having them go to your contact page, email, you wait you know, two days or a week for an answer. By that point, you might have lost them, so if you could make it easy, yes, it does take them away from that at two car button, which is what you want them to do, but it's more effective than if you were just to have them do more work by contacting you and so on, so great, that was a great question to you. All right, so we talked about calls to action, so your product page is another page where you have a call to action and by default, your call to action will be at two card or by now. But again, this is really, really obvious, but what is it that you want them to do next? And sometimes what I've done and I've tested this is that right before my adds a car button, I said, click the add two car button now, or click the ata car button below to buy this, and when I've done that. Interestingly, I don't know why I've had more sail down when I don't do that. So, yes, it is obvious that the buy now button is there, but if you're telling people what to do if they see the by now, but they might not necessarily. Well, they don't know that they want to buy it, but if you tell them, click it to buy, it just makes it. You make it easier for them to go from that journey, so it might seem a little weird, too. Put that in there, but try it and see what happens. When I tried, it definitely worked, and it helped to increase my cells as well. And again, it just makes things easier for your audience.

Class Description

Running your own online store gives you control over the sales process and allows you to create a space that fully reflects your brand. It also comes with a lot of responsibility and can quickly become a major source of stress. Learn the right way to optimize your e-commerce website from Andreea Ayers.

Andreea has started and sold three companies in the last five years. As the owner-operator of a successful organic soap line and founder of a six-figure t-shirt business, she knows exactly what it takes to build a business online. In Optimize Your Online Store, Andreea will teach you how to create a website that reflects your brand and encourages customers to buy.

She’ll teach you how to:

Set up a homepage that encourages immediate connection

Create an about page that builds trust

Write product descriptions that do the selling for you

Turn browsers into paying customers

When you run your own online store you have to customize it so that when people do come, they trust you enough to actually make a purchase. Andreea will teach you how to analyze and improve your site so that visitors feel confident in you and your products and are converted into lifelong customers.

By the end of this class, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to ensure that your website reflects your brand, is trustworthy and encourages people to buy.

Adri

This class is perfect! A great overview and explanation of what you need. I really like the simplicity and after watching it for free I bought it so I could pause it and implement the ideas as I went through the course. I love my page website now and highly suggest this class!

a Creativelive Student

Wow! I bought this class on a whim and didn't expect to get as much out of it as I did. It is to the point, filled with really good information and presented really well. I am so glad I got it. We are about to redo our website and I feel a lot more confident about doing it right now.

Julz P

Andreea is such a delight to watch, no wonder she does well in business, I want to buy from her and she isn't even selling me anything! Refreshing, very good for anyone looking for help with their website and connecting with your audience.